Caveat Emptor

Peter lynch once state that there is no point in doing market timing. If a company is good it will continue to grow. Small Amount of over valuation should not matter in the long run for growth stocks. This is in contrast of Benjamin Graham focus on margin of safety. Focus on value investing.Modern fundamental school of thought is to choose good growth / value companies with a long term outlook, and use technical analysis to price entry and exit points. So far, my portfolio has made overall gains throughout with only 2 positions resulting in losses. Granted it is a small portfolio (diversification through deep analysis and market exposure and risks), the plus is successful in overwhelming the minus. Still, I admit I really suck at the market timing portion via technical analysis. I initially buy stocks at certain level above resistance lines. The thing about technical analysis is it is very short term based (short term is hours, long term is less than a month). At this point of time,

Links http://thecollegeinvestor.com/1332/invest-lump-sum-small-chunks-dollar-cost-averaging/ http://www.moneychimp.com/features/dollar_cost.htm https://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/2014/11/12/dollar-cost-averaging-your-way-to-wealth.aspx http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/stocks-shares-indices-92/%2Aofficial%2A-standard-chartered-bank-online-equities-trading-5287938.html https://the-international-investor.com/investment-faq/stock-broker-account-safety http://dollarsandsense.sg/standard-chartered-to-introduce-minimum-commission-fee-for-online-brokerage-trades/ https://heartlandboy.com/standard-chartered-brokerage/ https://the-international-investor.com/investment-faq/stock-broker-account-safety http://dollarsandsense.sg/7947-2/ Pros 1) You Don't Have The Money Upfront 2) Psychological appeal: if the market dips, people will be happy because DCA will be saving them money; and if the market goes up, people will be happy regardless . 3) You don't believe in mar

1) markets are not rational. Share performance will be more volatile than company real performance. Share price is most widely tracked but least useful. Book value is not accurate reflection on company's ability to generate profit. 2) strong opponent of emh. If you are so smart why am I so rich. William Sharpe. Outperformance of market is a sigma event. It is easier to explain a sigma event than explain gaps in Emh. Opponent of capm (unrealistic assumptions )and technical analysis (not reproducible) There is poor autocorrelation in prices and technical analysis should fail. There is no way to reproduce results reliably. Flip a chart over and the results are not reproducible 3) Business schools and markets reward complex behaviour more than simple behaviour. But simple behaviour is more effective. Strongly prefer simple business with predictable results. If you can't explain why you want to make an investment, don't do it. Invest within your circle of competence. If res

I am currently digesting a book, titled the Warren Buffet philosophy of investment by elena chirkova. To be frank,  I read a fair share of Warren Buffet books, his quotes, and advice on the internet by Buffet wannabes on how they can emulate him and achieve his results. (Buffet trackers, dodgy people proclaiming they can beat his returns) I will do a write-up on this book in due course. However,  some afterthoughts as follows. 1) Mere mortals do not have the count to infinity time horizon as Buffet as. They are constrained by capital, transaction costs and immediate expenses to follow up. They don't have the stature and negotiation power of Buffet, to bargain for convertible bonds, to limit his risk exposure while holding an option to convert to shares. (think Baml). 2) This book has an interesting critique on mathematical finance and valuation models. Although Buffet is a proponent of financial ratios, he shuns overly complex mathematical valuation models, which models had unre

Singpost - Hindsight 6 months ago, I had seriously delibrated on buying singpost as it is undervalued then. 6 months later, I am glad that I held off the purchase. Although it has certain moats that made it an attractive value buy at that point of time, what is undervalued can go even lower. Singpost does not enjoy an impressive profit margin from its traditional lines of business,  and is doomed in a sunset industry, rapidly overtaken by emails and electronics forms of communication. It is relatively leveraged compared to the revenue it can deliver, and is drawing down on its capital expenditure on capital expenditure into its e commerce system. This company enjoys an enduring business merely because of its monopoly position as a core postal service whereby legal and official documents still need to be delivered in a physical form. Other than that, it's operating and financial performance is not stellar. I was merely lucky that I had the discipline to hold off the purchase, as

Wait till unsustainable price for chew to drop before reconsidering. Large surge in profit is due to land sale to government and wait for disappointing quarter / annual results to shake speculators confidence before going in. Sgx, dairy farm and Suntec REIT has great potential. But its moats and margin of safety are not as deep as I like. I should stay away and wait for the quarterly results. I expect vicom to plunge further due to effects from coe down cycle. Wait till next quarter results for any investment decision Interest rate hike did not seem to impact and create a fire sale in REITs compared to the November first hike. Maybe it is all fully factored in and I bought mine at the best possible moment. The best direction moving forward is to look away from the stock market, focus on building my warchest reserves and enjoy life as a whole. And wait for the next quarter financial results before any decision is made. Expect downward movements in my portfolio as sell in May and go

  I am conducting an independent Analysis of SRS across providers, as the information of the Internet is incredibly lacking. Effective on year 2017, this is a table summarising the relevant charges to be expected before one undertakes account opening decision. This is to be used as a general guide of comparison and there might be errors . If anyone wishes to clarify on the above claims, he should speak to his respective bank's banker.  1)  For the purpose of investing via SRS, UOB has ongoing promotion of waiving of charges until 31 Dec 2017. 2) Sources http://uob.com.sg/assets/pdfs/SRS_Charges.pdf https://www.ocbc.com/assets/pdf/investment/cpfia_schedule_of_charges_201112.pdf https://www.dbs.com.sg/iwov-resources/pdf/invest/supplementary-retirement-scheme/srs_schedule_of_charges.pdf 3) Generally, for my own investment methodology (strongly inclined towards stocks and REIT) i) Shares, ETFs and Corp bonds = UOB ii)Singapore Government Securities = UOB 4) Af